


Longing: a yearning desire

by rasyya



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-22
Updated: 2014-08-22
Packaged: 2018-02-14 06:45:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2181909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rasyya/pseuds/rasyya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His fingers leave dark crimson streaks that pool in the hollow of her throat;</p><p>“You’re still wearing it.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Longing: a yearning desire

**Author's Note:**

> i don't even go here, but wrote this for a friend.

His fingers leave dark crimson streaks that pool in the hollow of her throat;

“You’re still wearing it.”

She nods minutely, unable to quell the ash-burnt taste of betrayal and disappointment, even as Clint bleeds out on her welcome mat, fingers gripping tight to the arrow necklace like a lifeline.

“What happened to you?” She finally asks, still not letting him in to the apartment. He shakes his head.

The rage surges hot and black and she’s got him in a headlock and she’s hurling obscenities at him, coupled with hurt and frustration and worry and love and repentance. 

He sags limply and she hears the blood leaking out of him dripping onto her cream coloured carpet; watches it blossom, blooming and staining; damning.

“I heard you got shot,” he tries, choking a little on spit and blood. There are flecks of both on his pale lips.

Natasha drags him roughly to the kitchen and drops him unceremoniously on the linoleum floor where the mess he makes will be easier to clean.

“I would have been there,” he whispers low like a promise, and she knows it’s the truth but she can’t admit it might be; can’t find it in her to forgive because he should have fucking been there. For her.

“You should have fucking been there.” She flings over her shoulder on the way to the bathroom medicine cabinet, unable to look at him; her normally stoic countenance marred by unrelenting, undeniable hurt.

When she returns, sewing kit in hand, she is carefully composed, and there’s a hard edge to her voice when she asks, hesitant,

“Are you—”

She can’t finish it. Because the look Clint gives her makes her feel impossibly young, like the first time they met—the vicious uncompromising anger coursing through her, the respect in his eyes as they stood facing each other, an arrow between them.

He closes his eyes, grimacing, she doesn’t know if the pain is from the wound in his side or something else,

“I would never,” he grunts, and then he opens his eyes, levelling her with an open, honest gaze because he knows she needs it,

“I have never been with Hydra.”

She nods curtly, knows he understands it, because the tense line of his shoulders relaxes slightly, and then he’s coughing so Natasha gets out the little golden scissors—shaped like a bird, and begins cutting away the fabric around his wound.

She cleans and stitches him up in silence, his head lolls; drowsy with pain and the fucked up high his body supplies to counter it. She lets him pet her hair a little; a small concession, and when she is finished she shoulders him as gently as she can, and lays him tenderly on the couch.

“What colour are my eyes?” Natasha freezes, recognizing the wretched desperate cadence to Clint’s voice.

“Where were you Barton?” She asks instead, knowing the answer already, but it still stabs and twists when she hears it,

“I don’t know.”

“Do you remember it?” The pained way his face creases makes Natasha sit down on the coffee table, lean in close and brush the sweaty hair off of his forehead. 

“What colour are they, ‘Tasha?”

“They aren’t—you’re not. They aren’t blue.” Clint’s body visibly slackens, and Natasha pushes him over and curls up beside him, pulling him close.

She doesn’t sleep. Eyes on the room; alert. She can’t afford to sleep—not when Clint’s fucked up like this.

She doesn’t know where he was when shit at S.H.I.E.L.D went down, but she knows—she breathes out a sigh of relief that takes a weight off of her chest.

Natasha kisses Clint’s temple softly, his breathing shallow but regular, and waits; ready to shoot, golden arrow nestled against the dip of her throat smeared in red like a promise.


End file.
